16. Digital Dissent and Censorship in the Kashmir Conflict

The extension of digital networks has led to an increased democratization in the international politics and is increasingly providing virtual, yet effective spaces for political mobilization, lending voices to dissent across conflict regions. These digital spaces, while facilitating more effective tools for conveying dissent, are challenging state authoritarianism across the world. Significantly, social media paved the way for democratization during the ‘Arab Spring’ in the Middle East; however, the culture of digital dissent has posed serious challenges for complex democracies like India. In the Kashmir region, the disputed territory between India and Pakistan, social media have played an effective role during recent mass mobilization for ‘right to self-determination’ and growing armed resistance. Censorship and cyber-policing have been adopted by government agencies to counter the ‘anti-national’ narrative being propagated through social media during the turmoil. Frequent Internet bans in Kashmir territory have been widely criticized by international organizations like UNO and Amnesty International as well as by many political analysts across the world as an arbitrary act to sabotage dissent and to serve as a form of ‘collective punishment’ for the people in the region. This chapter aims to explicate on the emerging phenomenon of online mobilization in the region and how social media activism is posing a major challenge to the Indian state in Kashmir. Moreover, it will discuss how the government and its agencies in the region are persistently adopting methods to curb freedom of speech and expression by censoring social media networks, to obstruct and muzzle online dissidents.